You Can Have Chips: The Autobiography of Steve Wignall

LuaLua

CHAPTER ONE

BAG BOX DAY TO SHANKLY’S WAY

I am not a great reader of books, so the thought of actually writing one myself was quite daunting. When I received a letter from Apex Publishing suggesting that they publish my autobiography, my immediate reaction was to put the letter to one side or even bin it! Why me? Who would want to read about my life and career, when there are so many more people of consequence and importance who have published work over the years?

However, my wife took a very different view. Why shouldn’t you write a book? You can say this; you can say that. It will be good fun! I’ll help. Her enthusiasm for the task helped persuade me to give it a go. My wife has a great memory for detail, almost photographic at times, so going back over the years her recall would become invaluable.

Here’s a little story to give you some idea of my wife’s character. At junior school, if the curriculum for the day had been completed with ten minutes or so to spare, the teacher, not wanting the kids to be sat around idle or messing about would say, Anne Parry [her maiden name, obviously], come out to the front and talk! She would keep the class entertained and perhaps educated in anything she chose to speak about on that day. Nothing has changed after 32 years of marriage!

Regarding the content of my book, it will be as it was, with little sensationalism and not too much poetic licence, just honest everyday things that have happened and experiences that have occurred in my life as a professional footballer, coach and manager. Anne said, Could you put the naughty bits in? My reply was, Let’s wait and see. I have no intention of embarrassing anybody in my book, but at the same time most things need to be told as they were.

I have met some fantastic people in and outside football. I have also met some nuggets, backstabbers, silly arses, big-time charlies, dicks and wannabes, etc. Oh dear, I’m sounding a bit cynical already and I’ve hardly got started!

I didn’t play for England or in the top division of football but I still had a good career in a tough profession and came out of it in pretty good shape. People tend to take special notice when they read or hear something that a famous person has stated, or assume that if a foreign manager or coach at a high level says something in broken English it must be profound. What a load of cobblers! Having been in the game at a decent level, I can assure you it isn’t all profound. Having been a manager in the Football League, I know that what is said in the dressing room at Colchester United or Manchester United will be very similar. One big difference is that you don’t see many second-hand Vauxhalls in the players’ car park in Manchester. The point I’m trying to make is that you don’t need to be a household name before you have something worthwhile to say to people.

Coming from Liverpool I nearly always try to see the funny side of things, so there have been lots of comical events in my career as well as some not so funny moments. All in all I am a positive person and even now, at the ripe old age of 53, I try to be optimistic every day I get out of bed. My father always says, You are a long time dead son! and he is 88!

I was born in Liverpool in 1954, the fourth of five children with three older sisters – Carol, Lorraine and Pauline, and one younger brother David. My brother David will appear in the book later, as he also was involved in professional football. In fact, we even played in the same team for a while. We lived in Tuebrook, Liverpool 13, only a bus ride from Anfield football ground.

Dad was born in Liverpool and mum was born in Llandudno, North Wales. My mum was a Wren and my dad served in the Army. They met during the Second World War, had a whirlwind romance and were married pretty sharpish before he was sent overseas. Five kids, seven grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and 65 years later, they are retired and living in Llandudno.

My father was a season ticket holder and still is to this day. In his earlier years he lived close to Melwood Drive training ground and used to watch the old Liverpool players such as Billy Liddle, Bob Paisley, Ronnie Moran and Jimmy Melia. At the end of one such training session, my dad wryly tells me of the time that Bob Paisley sauntered over to him still sweating from his exertions, retrieved a half smoked ciggy from behind his ear and asked for a light! Unfortunately, my father had to decline one of his idols, as he was a non-smoker! Oh my, how the game has changed. I don’t think the present Liverpool manager would be too happy with that scenario these days.

My earliest recollection of football is when I was about eight years old and I used to go down to a local field called ‘The Red Wreck’. I would watch men’s teams play with a real ‘Casey’ as we called them. This was basically a leather ball with a bladder in it and a laced-up slot. They were dubbined to try to repel the moisture that turned it into a huge brown bar of soap – no wonder the goalkeepers wore those big silly woollen gloves!

I used to stand behind the goal, which had ‘real’ nets. That meant to me in those days that it was a proper game of ‘togger’, as we called it in Liverpool. From behind the goal I would chase after the ball with half a dozen other kids whenever a shot went wide of the target. Most of the lads were older and bigger than me so I rarely got a look in. In fact I usually got pushed over and trampled on before I put a finger on the Holy Grail. I loved just being there though, and when I did actually get the ball I would give it the full welly back to the goalie without showing any kind of facial expression, even though it felt as though I’d broken my bloody foot! Those ‘Caseys’ were rock hard!

The real treat came in my ninth year when my dad first took me to Anfield with him. His season ticket was in the Kemlyn Road stand but I had to stand in the paddock on the opposite side of the ground. Kids could take a box or whatever to stand on, so I took mine in my haversack and worked my way to the front so that I could see. Of course, you are supposed to take your box out of the bag, but the manoeuvre seemed so awkward to perform amongst such a melee’ that I actually stood on the bag instead, which consequently got all wet and filthy as you can imagine. Heaven knows what the ‘wet’ was; I shall leave that to your own imagination! I managed to see the game by just peeping over the wall. I got knocked off the box a few times when the crowd surged forward, but the men around me hitched me up by the scruff of my neck and dumped back on the bag box!

The atmosphere was unbelievable. It was scary, frightening, noisy and physical but I was hooked – not so much on the watching but rather my desire to get on the pitch and be one of them, ‘A Footballer’. I wanted to wear that red shirt.

As I watched the game and everyone around me was shouting, cheering, swearing, singing and jumping up and down, I just stood there and took in all that was happening both on and off the pitch. When the players came close to the touchline where I was standing I could even smell them. The liniment or embrocation made the hairs on my neck stand up! I could feel my heart thumping, not in fear but just being enveloped by everything. When the players made physical contact I could hear the smack or thud of flesh on flesh and see the expressions on their faces. Fantastic!

When the game finished and the crowd began to move, I must admit I was a little concerned as how I was going to get out in one piece. I thought, if I fall over I will get trampled on and never get up, especially with this bag on my back, but I needn’t have worried. In fact my feet hardly touched the ground. It was so packed that I literally got carried out of the stadium with my feet off the floor, totally compressed between others’ bodies! I can’t say that I enjoyed that bit and I was pretty relieved to reach the exit and meet my dad, who had left his seat a tad early so that he could get around to me in good time. My father has always been a Liverpool fan and from that day on I have been one too, always keen to discover their match results in a way that is different to my searching out the results of teams I was involved with as a player, coach or manager.

By the time I was ten we had moved across the Mersey River to The Wirral, which is still part of the Merseyside area. Some folk from Liverpool call people from over the water ‘Plastic Scousers’, but I was born in Liverpool city and as far as I am concerned I am a true Liverpudlian.

I started playing local junior football around this time and joined the Boys Brigade U12s. We did well at times to keep the score down to single figures; in fact, we did actually lose 270 in one game! From what I can remember I wasn’t that bothered about the score, I was just happy to change into some kit and get my boots on. The boots were rubber moulded studs (which were all the go at the time). I think mine were second-hand and they were a bit big for me but it didn’t matter. The shirts were somewhat rugby-like and came down to your knees when untucked, or even nearly to the floor when wet!

Luckily for me, a man named Dave Bale was watching one of our games and he pulled my dad and me to one side afterwards. He asked if I would like to go training with one of his Junior Olympic teams, which he ran from U11s toU16s. Dave was and still is an unassuming bloke, very quietly spoken and not a brash or boasting type but quite persuasive. It turned out that Junior Olympic FC was a very well run outfit respected in the area and above all, for me, all the sides had full matching kit! Even better they played in RED. When I asked Dave in latter years why he picked me out of a team that was losing by double figures almost every week, he said, You were the only boy in the team with your sleeves rolled up, you had a big bush of blond hair and you covered every inch of the pitch. You never touched the ball much but you ran your socks off!

Talking of running your socks off, I can remember in some games when the pitch was saturated and like a quagmire, so if your socks were a little big for you they would slip down, get completely soaked and end up over your boots! It was like trying to run in sodden house slippers and, remember, they were at the end of thin white legs with knees that looked like knots in cotton. What a state! I still loved it though.

Believe it or not, I rolled up my sleeves in every game I can remember throughout my career, even if it was freezing cold. It was just my way and I felt comfortable with it.

While on the subject of being comfortable, how can you play a game of football in a pair of gloves? A lot do it these days. What a set of ‘tarts’! They’ll be playing in earmuffs next!

And, talking of ears, I will digress for a moment to recount a story that upset my wife when I told her some 20 years later!

I had not been in Wallasey, Wirral, for long and one cold day I was going down to the local park for a kick-about. On the way you had to pass some public toilets. As I approached them, I noticed a lad running out of them at some speed. He was only about my age and I didn’t think too much of it, so I went into the loo for a quick pee before the game. However, when I got in there the floor was two inches deep in water and all the washbasins had their plugs in with the taps full on! Water was overflowing and flooding the whole place. My first reaction was to turn off the taps in order to try to stem the flow. As I grabbed a tap and started to turn it off, a big burly bloke came into the toilets and, before I could explain, he smacked me hard across the face and ear with his dinnerplate-like hand. It was the hardest I had ever been hit and I literally did see stars! The old survival mode clicked in and I legged it. He obviously thought that I was the perpetrator, but I wasn’t going to hang about to protest my innocence and maybe cop another one! When I got to the park my mates said, What happened to you? Apparently I had a huge red handprint on the side of my face. I played for two hours or so with my mates until the redness had gone, so I could go home without my mum or dad seeing it. I didn’t want them to know. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t want to tell them.

This was an early lesson in life for me, that there will always be an injustice in many ways and also that when you get hit properly it bloody well hurts.

There was worse to come. One morning my mum was talking to someone on the doorstep, so I nosed through the front window. It was him, the ear belter. He was only our milkman. Oh my God, I almost peed myself! I was torn as to whether to go and confront him with my mum at the front door, which could have been dodgy for him, as my mother (the eldest of six) can stand up for herself. He may have had to search for his ‘Gold Top’ in a place he could not imagine if she’d found out what he’d done! Having said that, he was only being a good citizen really and he didn’t know I wasn’t the culprit in the bogs. Anyway, I decided in those few seconds that discretion was the way to go say nowt!

I avoided our milkman like the plague over the following months, but realistically he wouldn’t have recognised me because on the day of the haymaker to the ear I was wearing a balaclava with just a slit for my eyes. It was kids’ fashion at the time.

Can you imagine that red mark on my face without the cushion of the woollen material? I would’ve had to play footie for about four hours instead of two!

I played for Junior Olympic right up to the age of 14. We were very successful as a club locally. We even went on a mini tour of Ireland one year, which was a great experience. The ferry crossing was something in itself, as I can remember the weather wasn’t good and our docking in Dublin was delayed. I had never seen so many sick people in all my life. Luckily I felt fine, but some parts of the ship were literally swimming in vomit! It was a real eye-opener.

In Dublin we went on a visit to the Guinness factory and at the end of the day we were allowed into the bar area, which obviously only served Guinness. Dave let us all have half a pint of ‘the black stuff ’ if we wanted to try it. This was my first taste of alcohol at the age of 12. It tasted like sucking wet cardboard but I drank it. Most of the lads did, or attempted to. It did us no harm and to this day whenever I drink Guinness the memory of that visit fleetingly enters my mind.

It was during this Irish trip that I came up against some real aggression on the pitch for the first time. With a Welsh mother and grandfather and an Irish great-grandmother there is no shortage of the Celtic froth in my makeup, which will be more apparent later on in this book!

Junior football in England was competitive, as it always has been, but in the couple of games in Dublin it went a step further. I don’t mean dirty or overaggressive, it was just that the players seemed to have more of an edge to them. Some were absolutely fearless in their challenges. I played any position as a youngster, as a lot of kids do, but by now I generally played at centre half as it was known then. I stood up to the aggressors and actually handed out a bit myself. Perhaps this was a turning point for me. I probably saw myself as a good ‘footballer’ who tried to play at all times, which we were encouraged to do by Dave Bale. Looking back, he was ahead of his time in regard to how he handled the young players and the standards he set for his teams and football club in general. As far as I know, the football club still exists today, some 40 years later.

In the Irish games I found myself having to be mostly physical to compete with the players over there. There was still a lot of skill in the matches but much of the play was a battle and I think that I picked up more bumps and bruises in two games than I did in most of the season back home in England. In fact in one game an Irish lad overstepped the mark a bit and threatened to give one of our team a slap. In a flash a balding man, who had a bucket and sponge in his hand, ran onto the pitch and grabbed the aggressor. He slapped him around the ear and dragged him off the pitch. Obviously a genuine attempt to keep the peace! We were the visitors and they were fantastic hosts. Good old physical stuff was okay but anything above and beyond was frowned upon. What a difference from what happens on a regular basis today in junior football, where many managers’, coaches’ and parents’ antics are worse than the players’!

I was now attending a grammar school after passing the 11+ exam the previous year. Football was not on the curriculum, only rugby. Luckily for me, however, the headmaster Mr Pettit was an ex-footballer with Stockport County. It was a very strict all boys school with the usual traditions. I had to wear a cap for the first two years. What a nightmare! Some of the ‘Fags’, as they were affectionately known, had their caps thrown on the bike shed roofs, booted around the school yard or even dipped in the toilets. At the end of the day some lads looked if they had oversized tam-o’-shanters on their heads!

I kept my head down over the first few days and stayed mainly unscathed, but some of the first years were given a pretty rough time. This was all new to me even though I could look after myself to a certain degree. Anyway, I worked the oracle and made friends with the right lads, ironically through football in the playground. We played with a tennis ball, as nothing bigger was allowed. It was great for practising your skills and I genuinely think that this period of two or three years with a tennis ball definitely improved my technique.

Within weeks of starting at the grammar school and for the first time I came across what could only be called coldblooded violence. I made friends with a lad called Terry Kilty who lived not far from me and we used to cycle the three miles to school together. Terry was a game lad and we got on well. One day in the playground he was having a disagreement with a boy in the same year called Ray whom I didn’t really know. This character was a loner with little to say for himself. I don’t recall the cause of the problem but I’m sure it was trivial. I walked up and asked, What’s up? Ray replied Nothing important or something to that effect. Terry was standing about three yards away when, in a blink of an eye, Ray took one step past me and punched Terry flush in the face, cool as a cucumber. Then he straightened his tie and jacket and just walked off! Terry, spewing blood from his nose, slowly picked himself off the floor with the help of some others including myself. I was totally shocked that someone so young could be capable of that. I thought: should I say or do something? I took a few steps in the direction that Ray had taken, but I think he must have anticipated this, so he swivelled around and said, This doesn’t concern you. He deserved it.

I never did find out why it happened. I felt sorry for Terry but never really clashed with Ray over the incident. However, in the inter-house rugby competition I was in Faraday and Ray was in Ruskin and our two teams inevitably met. He was upright in a maul and I crash tackled him so hard that I felt his bones rattle. For a second I thought: oh dear! But he just got up, obviously in pain, gave me a wry look, smirked and just got on with the game. From then on we just said polite hellos to each other. He was perhaps the first hard case I had met.

I was a pretty good all-round sportsman at school, representing it at rugby, basketball, cricket and athletics. If you ask most footballers about their sporting prowess many of them will say that they were pretty much all-rounder. I actually won my ‘full colours’ for basketball, which was quite difficult to achieve. It was an award for excellence and came in the form of a different school tie for ‘half colours’ and a jacket for ‘full colours’. I wore the tie with pride but never wore the jacket. This was for two reasons. Firstly, it was very expensive for my mum and dad to pay out in my latter school years and, secondly, it was a bit loud to say the least, so not my style really unless I was going to the Henley Regatta!

The rugby toughened me up a bit, to be honest. I wasn’t keen on the old tackling; I could carry the ball well and kick it a mile but the contact, especially in the rucks, wasn’t my favourite. I played standoff, which suited me, and as the first couple of years passed I got more into it and started putting myself about a bit. My rugby teacher, Mr Burt, was a player himself and regularly came into school to teach with a black eye or cut lip or whatever. I used to look up to him and think he was a top man. Every other week we would play against a public school and literally we would take a beating, as they were excellent teams with players that were possible future Oxbridge candidates.

In one game I spotted the opposition number eight sneaking around the blind side of the scrum. I read the move and hit him as he picked up the ball, knocking him back. The ball spilled out of his hands and went into touch right next to where Mr Burt was standing. As I went to get the ball for our put-in, he whispered under his breath, You are not chicken now, Wignall, the penny’s dropped. I was chuffed! Coming from him that was a great compliment. I enjoyed my rugby after that without any real fear. There were never many spectators at these games after school hours but one fan who always turned up in all weathers was my girlfriend, Anne. Nothing has changed!

I also competed in the athletic events for the school. During one sports day, one of our eight eighty yard runners dropped out at the last minute through illness, so the housemaster asked if I would fill in. There were three runners from each of the houses, nine in all, and every runner gained points for their house. So even if I were to finish last I would still score some points. My main events were the javelin, the hundred yard sprint and the four-by-one-hundred yard relay. Hence my concern about what to expect. I decided to go off as quick as possible from the gun and just see what happened, so I set off like a train and just went for it. To my surprise I found myself about one hundred yards or so ahead on the first lap. I still had a bit left in the tank so I pushed on and won the race by a good margin. I couldn’t believe it! The teacher said, You’ve done that before. Breathing out of my bottom, I replied, I haven’t and I don’t intend to again, to which he responded, We’ll see about that, laddie.

And guess what? He entered me in the inter-schools eight eighty yard event. I didn’t even get in the first four! It brought me down a peg or two. At the same meeting I did win the javelin and set a new school record, and my dad read in the local rag that my record was only beaten fairly recently.

I had found that I had a good arm a few years earlier during my time in the Boys Brigade. We had a junior cricket ball throwing competition. One of the officers took the whole troupe around the back of the church hall where there was a grassed area. It wasn’t very big but was large enough to play small-sided games. He stood us at one end of the area with the junior officer and in turn we had a go at throwing the ball as far as we could towards him at the other end. I was one of the last to have a go. Most of the boys threw it about half the length of the grassed area and a couple nearly reached him. He marked the three furthest, as they would be the boys to throw for the troupe in the forthcoming contest. I was handed the ball for my go. I hadn’t played much cricket with a real hard ball, only a tennis ball, and it felt quite heavy. I surmised that you wouldn’t want that to hit you on the knuckles or anywhere else for that matter. I took a couple of steps back from the line, ran forward and chucked it as hard as I could. The ball flew … over the green, over the senior officer, over the hedge at the bottom and out of the church grounds! Running backwards to try to catch it, the senior officer shouted to the junior one, This is only supposed to be the juniors throwing. It is, sir, he replied. As he stopped at the hedge and peered over in vain to see where the ball had landed, with hands on hips he uttered, Bloody hell! Not really the kind of language you would expect to hear at the back of a church hall, but he was a little surprised so he could be forgiven for his lapse.

Another boy threw the ball after me and that also went out of bounds. His name was Gary Booth. I didn’t know him very well but we were to become good mates in our early years. He was a very good footballer, achieving some success at youth level with Tranmere Rovers. We lost contact after my marriage, but little did I know that we would meet again some 25 years later.

Luckily, as I mentioned earlier, my headmaster was an ex-footballer and this turned out to be rather handy. The school had the power to stop you playing football on Saturdays if you were required to play rugby. Some lads tried to beat the system and play for their soccer clubs, but the school was having none of it and made it very difficult for them. I went to see the headmaster and told him that I would like to play football as well as rugby and that I was hoping to get a trial at a professional club. I asked him whether it would be possible for him to be flexible about it if I were successful. He was pleased that I had gone to see him and he assured me that if the situation arose he would consider it. This was my first lesson in diplomacy and it worked out very well in the end.

I wasn’t bad academically at school, gaining seven GCE ‘O’ levels, or GCSEs as they are known now. Going to a grammar school wasn’t really the normal route towards becoming a footballer in those days as most players went through the secondary education system at the time, where football was on the curriculum. However, I was determined that I was going to play football as well as rugby and have a grammar school education.

Another example of a grammar school lad that made the grade at professional level was a friend who was a year or so older than me. We both played five-a-side indoor football at the local boys club. His name was Marc Palios, who went on to play for Tranmere and Crewe. He had a good business career and went on to hold office at the Football Association, which has been well documented. I was sad to see how it turned out for him because he was always a nice lad and I thought he was a good choice to take things forward at the FA. It just shows how damaging the media can be to someone’s career.

I was just coming up to 14 when Dave Bale asked if I would like him to put me forward for a trial at a professional club. He said that it wasn’t something that he did often for his lads; he only did it if he genuinely thought that the boy might have a real chance. Over the years some of his boys did make it to the pro ranks. Anyway, the letter went out and we received a reply that I was to report to Melwood Drive training ground for a trial with Liverpool FC. I couldn’t believe it just going to the Reds training ground was a big deal to me! The thought of perhaps meeting one of the players was indescribable at that time, although why I thought there would be any pros about at a junior trial God only knows! I was pretty star struck with the players at that age.

When I got to Melwood with my dad I think he was almost as excited as me. You can imagine it from his point of view: he had supported Liverpool from a boy and now his son was perhaps taking his first step towards becoming a Liverpool player. He must’ve been nervous for me even though he didn’t show it. It was a feeling repeated years later when I took my sons to their first trials at professional clubs.

There were a lot more boys at the trial than I had anticipated, maybe two hundred or so. It was very well organised and we were put into groups and then teams of similar ages. There was probably only a year or so between the oldest and youngest there. They gave out some red (what else?) shirts to the team to which I had been assigned. It was a nylon round necked type of shirt and I couldn’t wait to get it on! It was a bit big, as you would expect it to be, and as I jogged about in the warm-up I imagined that maybe one of the first team had worn it at some stage. This was a possibility, as kit was passed down through the ranks for either training kit or trials games much more back then than it is now. There were no names on the backs of shirts at that time. I rolled up the sleeves and took up my spot at centre half, which was my preferred position for the trial. Most of what happened in the two or three games that I played is pretty hazy to say the least, as I was caught up in the excitement and the importance of the day. I can remember enjoying myself, putting myself about and upsetting a couple of the opposing trialists with my physical challenges. This led to a comment from one of the coaches on the sideline: Don’t worry about them, lad, you’re playing for yourself today, just keep doing what you’re doing. I do remember vaguely that there were a couple of lads there a year or so older than me who were helping out and were already on Liverpool’s books. Their names were Phil Thompson and John Gidman, both of whom went on to become England internationals and great players.

Some days later a letter dropped on the doormat with a Liverpool FC crest on it. I can hardly describe how I was feeling just before I opened it. For me, even at just 14, this perhaps marked a bigger turning point in my life than when I received my 11+ results and gained my grammar school place. When opened, it read, You have been selected to train at Melwood Drive on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from the start of next season. This will include signing schoolboy forms for Liverpool Football Club, I was almost speechless. In the back of my mind was the thought: there’s a chance here. I might make a player yet! I was absolutely flying.

I spoke to my headmaster as soon as possible, informing him of my acceptance. He was genuinely pleased for me and agreed to be flexible with my rugby and other school commitments. He also felt that it was a feather in the school’s cap to have a pupil involved with a professional football club.

As I lived ‘over the water’ from Liverpool, I had to get a bus to board the ferry that crossed the Mersey to the pier head by the Liver Building and then catch another bus to Melwood Drive. This was about an hour’s journey on a good night. It was tough getting home from school, doing my homework, eating and then travelling over but I was pretty determined to attend every training session that I could. It was even harder when the winter nights drew in and also there could be some dodgy characters on the ferry and return buses later on in the evening. Most sessions would run from approximately 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., which meant that I didn’t get back home until 10 p.m. or later. As time went on and my workload from school increased because of looming GCE exams I was thankful for the support and library visits from Anne. Her research on several subjects was invaluable to me. Little did we know that this was just the start and she was on board for the long haul!

At Liverpool they had a ‘C’ team, a ‘B’ team and an ‘A’ team, and the next stop was the reserves. I started in the ‘C’ team and we played against some teams that were a little bit older than us. It was quite tough and when you put that red shirt on there was no quarter given by the opposition. We played most of the games at Melwood on good quality pitches. There were designated coaches for each team on match days, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays a senior coach called Rueben Bennett, a red-faced uncompromising Scotsman with a deep gravelly voice, put us through our paces. From the two hundred or so boys at the trial only eight to my knowledge were selected. So I felt privileged to be at the sessions and Rueben was constantly reminding everyone of the standards expected at Liverpool FC.

In an early session I remember Reuben setting up a very basic passing routine: a ball between two players standing about ten yards apart in two parallel lines. He told us to pass the ball to each other with just two touches, one to control and one to pass side footed. He let the session go on for a minute or two as he strode up and down along the outside of the two lines of players, hands behind his back, before all of a sudden bellowing, STOP! Everyone put their foot on the ball and stood still. He walked over to one pair and in his Scottish drawl said, What the hell are ye two doin’? The two lads, looking like rabbits caught in the headlights, didn’t reply immediately but just froze. Rueben didn’t give them much opportunity to respond anyway. When I say pass it with the inside of your foot, I mean it, not the outside of the foot. If we wanted Fancy Dans we would’ve gone down to the girls school. This is Liverpool FC and we do things simple here, RIGHT? Yes, Coach, they replied. He set us off again and we passed the ball between us for about ten minutes as he watched over us. There wasn’t a sound from anyone. It seemed a little harsh at the time, but the longer you were there the more the whole Liverpool way of simplicity rubbed off on you.

Bill Shankly was the manager there back then and all his coaches were as one. ‘Get the basics right’ was the core of everything. The staff in general were a pretty tough lot with the likes of Ronnie Moran, Joe Fagan, Bob Paisley and not forgetting dear old Rueben! Although there was a Liverpool way of ‘passing’ football, there was also a strong physical presence in the club, which came through the manager and staff and into the players. While I was there, from 1969 into the 1970s, Liverpool were a very successful club. It was no surprise to me, as they seemed to have it all just right. There was a feeling about the place that you could almost taste: supreme confidence in everything that they did.

I progressed quite well over the season and pushed myself into the ‘B’ team. We played against other clubs in the northwest such as Burnley, Oldham, Tranmere and Preston. They were always keenly contested especially as we were the reds, whom everyone wanted to beat for obvious reasons.

I remember one game away at Oldham on a fresh cold Saturday morning. It has stuck in my mind because I suffered some pain, which does tend to imprint itself on your memory! It was a tough physical match and the pitch was a little heavy. We were on the defensive a bit and I cleared a corner to about 30 yards out. The ball went quite high in the air, so I decided to charge out and press the ball. As I reached just outside the box, one of their lads volleyed it back at goal. It hit me full in the face and literally knocked me horizontal in the air. I came down flat on my back and I felt as if I’d been hit in the mush with a cast-iron frying pan! The next thing I knew the sponge man was sitting me up and saying, You okay, Stevie? (For some reason the staff at Liverpool always called Steves or Stevens ‘Stevie’. To this day, you still hear them say, Stevie Gerrard. Funny that, isn’t it?) Anyway, he then sloshed a huge water filled sponge in my face. There was a slight whiff of Ellermans Rub in that water you know, that stinking white stuff you can smell on a Sunday morning recreation ground if the wind is in the right direction. He stood me up and said, Away you go, it’s their throw, you look fine. In actuality I felt like shit and couldn’t feel my face!

Anyway, I got through the game and we forced a draw out of it. The coach was quite pleased with me and I noticed that he had a slight smirk on his face as he spoke to me. I thought nothing of it and was just pleased to get the praise that all footballers desire.

I showered but was still felt a bit woozy after my makeup smudging collision, so I took a look in the mirror. I knew then why the coach had been smirking! I had a face like a pomegranate with bee-stung lips to match! My first battle scars! At least my mum still loved me when I got home.

Sometimes when more established or senior players were coming back from injury they would have the odd game in the ‘A’ team or even the ‘B’ team. This meant that I rubbed shoulders on the pitch with some very good players over the seasons. By the time I was 16 I had played a few games in the ‘A’ team with the likes of Phil Thompson, John Gidman, Hugh McCauley and Gareth Hughes (Emlyn’s brother). The teams for Saturdays were usually typed out on individual team sheets and pinned up on the notice board in the changing room on Thursdays. I used to look at them all to see who was playing in which team, including the first team.

During the holidays we were invited to train at the same time of day as the pros. What an experience that was! To see the likes of Shankly, Paisley, Moran and Fagan firsthand was daunting and, as for seeing the first team players, that was fantastic. We even got changed in adjacent rooms and you could wander around amongst everyone. I can remember there being lots of photos, books and shirts laid out on the treatment couch in the middle of one of the rooms. All the pros were milling around signing autographs on them before going out onto the training pitch. When the sessions got under way the youngsters would go off in their group. There was another group of apprentices and young pros and then there was the first team. I was still hopeful of an apprenticeship, as were several of the group I was training with, so the sessions were quite intense and competitive.

At the end of one such session we were walking back to the changing room and the first team had already finished. It was the Friday before a game so they hadn’t trained for long short and sharp, as they say. The other group were just finishing and Bill Shankly and his staff had set up a small-sided game. He was selecting some young players from that group to join in. It was virtually the staff versus young whippersnappers five-a-side on a Friday morning routine. We decided to hang about and watch for a while. I thought it would be a light-hearted knockabout as if!

Shankly was bellowing his orders, Ronnie Moran was charging around like a bull and the young boys were running all over the place to impress. A few minutes into the game a penalty was awarded to the staff side, dubious of course, but there was little objection from the youngsters, just a few whispers under their breath. And guess who stepped up to take the penalty? Mr Shankly, of course. Hardly taking a breath, constantly talking and ribbing the other team that it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to score, he stepped up and hit a low shot towards the corner of the goal. There was no great pace on it; in fact it was a crap penalty! The keeper leapt across and saved the kick, pushing it out for a corner. The young boys gave a yelp and congratulated the keeper and then to their surprise Shankly shouted, No, no, no ye cannie miss a penalty. Give me the ball. Taking absolutely no notice of muted grumblings from the kids in fact the keeper’s face was like a robber’s dog he replaced the ball on the spot and this time smashed it past the goalie! As he spun to jog off he turned to one of the boys and said, That’s the way to score a penalty, laddie, and the game just carried on.

I was told by some of the apprentices that those games were a regular occurrence and none of them could remember Shanks losing one. Some games seemed to go on longer than others until the correct result was achieved. We didn’t stay to watch the rest of the game as Tony Waiters (ex-first team keeper), our senior coach, wanted us in and showered so as not to get cold. After all, we had our own big game the following morning. Tony was very professional and treated us as an important and integral part of the football club.

Crunch time was coming regarding decisions from the club as to who would be offered apprenticeships. My mind was resolute that, even though I had a good education and the chance of landing a decent job in Civvy Street, I still wanted to be a professional footballer.

When the time came I was called into an office at Melwood and sat down in front of the coaches. They said they liked me and felt I had a future in football but they couldn’t offer me a place because they had their full quota of apprentices. This included Phil Thompson and John Gidman some competition! They wanted me to stay on at school and continue to play in the ‘A’ team and if I progressed, as they thought I would, possibly in the reserves. I was gutted but not totally surprised. I had seen and played with most of the young lads that had been taken on and the standard was fantastic, as you can imagine. I needed to think about what they had said, talk to my mum and dad and then make a decision.

After lengthy discussions with my parents, we thought that it might be best to look at other options. Hard as this decision was, I still felt that I had something to offer and was prepared to put myself on the line at another football club. Through contacts I was offered a trial at Coventry City, which was a disaster. After travelling all the way to Coventry with a local scout, I was put in the wrong age group, a year below me, and I played in a game that wasn’t of the best standard. The coach asked if I would like to return at a later date for another game. It all seemed a bit disorganised compared with my Liverpool experience, so I felt a bit deflated to say the least.

However, the scout that had driven my dad and me to Coventry said that there was an alternative. He knew a new manager in the lower divisions of the Football League who was looking for young players and he thought it might be worth my playing in a couple of under18 youth team games so that he could have a look at me. The manager was Maurice Setters, who had just taken over at Doncaster Rovers. Maurice would go on to assist Jack Charlton in their very successful World Cup campaign with the Republic of Ireland some years later.

My first reaction was: where is Doncaster? At 16 and having not been far from the northwest coast, I didn’t even know what county it was in!

Well, I decided to go for it and, although I didn’t know it at that time, this was the start of a new life for me in a totally different place and the beginning of my football career.

CHAPTER TWO

PURPLE REIGN AT ANFIELD

Following my decision to pursue my footballing dreams at Doncaster, I went to see my headmaster to explain the situation to him. He was very supportive and could see why I had made that choice.

The Doncaster manager wanted me to play some youth team games, which would take place at Cantley Park in Doncaster. The kickoff times were at 11 a.m. on Saturday mornings and so, taking into account that it would be a two to three-hour journey, it was clear that I would need to go the night before and stay over. The